transit

Report Suggests Congestion-Charging Would Mostly Affect Bridge and Tunnel Drivers

An article in Tuesday's New York Times covering a new report from the city's Independent Budget Office suggests that most of the drivers who would be affected by the Mayor's controversial congestion-pricing proposal would be from outside the city, and have substantially higher incomes than in-city drivers. However, the report also suggests that while the plan would raise revenues from car-driving non-city residents it would potentially penalize city government workers who drive to work.

Government workers, according to the report, constitute nearly 20% of drivers, with police, fire and other emergency service drivers constituting nearly another fifth of the non-city residents potentially affected by the plan. This, says the Times article's author, Sewell Chan, does not bode well for the success of the proposal. Now, this blog, can see why emergency services should be exempt from a congestion-charge but why should general government office workers get special dispensation? They already get subsidized or free parking which promotes car use, should they also be exempt from a charge designed to cut pollution and congestion for all New Yorkers? Aren't they supposed to be working for the benefit of the city and its residents?

Moreover, if such "key workers" (fire, police, ambulance, teachers, doctors, nurses, government officials etc) are so important to the city, and need to have access to their offices quickly, would it not make sense for the city government to institute some kind of key worker assistance program that offered them some sort of housing subsidy? This is done in London and many cities in the UK where swift access to places of work for such people has been identified as a priority, and key workers have their accommodation subsidized to enable them to purchase homes close to their place of work.

After all, if you exclude whole classes of people from the congestion-charge aren't you failing to reduce congestion as much as has been judged to be optimal? And, if those excluded drivers are still sitting in traffic, where is the improvement? Isn't the whole point of the congestion-charge proposal to make New York City more livable, more efficient and less polluted, instead of inconvenient for certain people, depending on their employer? read more...

MTA Riders Pay More Than Other US Cities, But Is the Subway Still a Bargain?

MTA fare hikes came under scrutiny again in the press yesterday over a report detailing that New Yorkers pay for a higher percentage of their mass transit through fares than any other city in the nation. An article in the NY Daily News, titled New Yorkers taken for a ride with transit costs - report, called it unfair that city residents pay a greater proportion of the costs of mass transit than any other city in nation. The News began a campaign last week called "Halt the Hike" urging state officials not to go ahead and increase subway fares by 25c in March of '08.

While MTA officials admit that the agency is set to make a $400million surplus this year, they claim increased fares are needed to offset increased costs in the fiscal year 2009 that will also eat up much of the surplus. Governor Spitzer has declared fare hikes a "last resort", and many local elected officials have also come out against them. However, there are two different issues here -- one, that fare hikes are necessary or unnecessary to balance the state purse, and two, whether New Yorkers are paying too much for their mass transit. read more...

Is Mass Transit a Livability Issue?

Perhaps contrary to the commonly subscribed-to idea that the poor take the bus and the subway, and the rich either take cabs or drive themselves and then stump up for parking, Metro New York suggests today in its article How Fair is the Fare? that there are further striations in the commuting public based on the proposed increase in MTA transit fares. read more...